Weekend 17/12/11 - 18/12/11

This weekend was not very good. Our current right hand man Chandra was busy with the "Ayyappa swamy" activities and work had not progressed well...

We did take help of Uddit and did some cleaning up activities....

One more step forward was getting the electrical connection within the room working...it's pending for a long time and we had to restore it ASAP as we are planning a night on 31/12 :-)

Drip irrigation work which got completed had it's own issues and we had to call back the company folks to get it all checked again...

My guru and a good friend Anand (who's also from Mysore), has taken the ownership of getting the Banana plants applied with fungicide this week. Cannot thank him enough for his help as he's to leave his 24/7 work and supervise our farm. 

Weekend 10/12/2011 -1 1/12/2011

This week was most satisfying as got the Drip irrigation system installed...

It took around 3 days to get the things done and tomorrow(12/12/11) would start functioning...

We got the system from Jain Irrigation which seems to be a well known company for irrigation systems..

What's the long term plan? Nothing. As we need to move towards a state of natural farming, till then it's going to reduce our labor challenges...

Have a look at few snaps taken yesterday...

Outlet from Main Line - This help in use of sprinklers or flood irrigation 

Filter used for Inline Laterals...supposed to be the best available

"Ventury", used for mixing manure with irrigation

Muttuga Tree - Flame of the Forest

Butea monosperma (Sanskrit : किंशुक, Telugu: మోదుగ/మోదుగు, Hindi : पलाश, Bengali : পলাশ) is a species of Butea native to tropical and sub-tropical parts of the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia, ranging across India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and western Indonesia.^[1] Common names include Palash, Dhak, Palah, Flame of the Forest, Bastard Teak, Parrot Tree, Keshu (Punjabi) and Kesudo (Gujurati), Kannada - Muttuga
It is a medium sized dry season-deciduous tree, growing to 15 m tall. It is a slow growing tree, young trees have a growth rate of a few feet per year. The leaves are pinnate, with an 8–16 cm petiole and three leaflets, each leaflet 10–20 cm long. The flowers are 2.5 cm long, bright orange-red, and produced in racemes up to 15 cm long. The fruit is a pod 15–20 cm long and 4–5 cm broad.^[2]

It is used for timber, resin, fodder, medicine, and dye. The gum from the tree, called kamarkas in Hindi, is used in certain food dishes. The gum is also known as Bengal Kino and is considered valuable by druggists because of its astringent qualities and by leather workers because of its tannin.^[3] The wood is dirty white and soft and, being durable under water, is used for well-curbs and water scoops. Good charcoal can be made from it. The leaves are usually very leathery and not eaten by cattle. The flowers are used to prepare traditional Holi colour.

This tree amongst others provides leaves that are used either with many pieced together or singly (only in case of a banana leaf) to make a leaf-plate for serving a meal over.


In West Bengal, it is associated with Spring (season), especially through the poems and songs of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, who likened its bright orange flame-like flower to fire. In Santiniketan, where Tagore lived, this flower has become an indispensable part of the celebration of spring. The plant has lent its name to the town of Palashi, famous for the historic Battle of Plassey fought there.
It is said that the tree is a form of Agnidev, God of Fire. It was a punishment given to Him by Goddess Parvati for disturbing Her and Lord Shiva's privacy.
In the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh, these flowers are specially used in the worship of Lord Shiva on occasion of Shivratri. In Telugu, this tree is called Modugu chettu.
In Kerala, this is called 'plasu' and 'chamata'. Chamata is the vernacular version of Sanskrit word 'Samidha', small piece of wood that use for 'agnihotra' or fire ritual. In most of the old namboodiri (Kerala Brahmin) houses, one can find this tree because this is widely use for their fire ritual. During Upanayanam ceremony the boy would carry a stick from this tree when he enters into brahmacharya phase

Week of Dec 3 - Dec 4

This week,

We applied the next round of manures 100 gms of MoP and 50 gm of Urea per plant.

A Jack Fruit Tree(Chandra Halasu) has been planted opposite to the room so that it gives a shadow once it's fully grown.

100 Nanjangud Banana plants have been planted and they are slowly settling down in the new soil well.

Next weekend planning to implement Drip irrigation and getting the irrigation automated. So from next week onwards, all manure application would be through ventury injector, reduction in man power and also uniform application to each plant.

Muttuga

Mallige 

Jack Fruit(Chandra Halasu)

Bamboo

Mehandi(Henna)

Butter Fruit

Novemeber 12-13 Weekend...

This week majority of the work for installing drip irrigation got done.. Trench has been done and all the pits for second batch of banana is ready. Drip should not take more than 2 days to get installed but to arrange for money would easily take more than a month :-)

Once drip is done lot's of manual labor can be cut and we can focus on other developments

Also we got following sapplings for our boundary as well..

1. 30 - Silver Oak

2. 30 - Hebbevu

3. 1- Tamarined

4. 1 - Supota (ciricket ball)

5. 4 - Lemon

6. 4 - Amla

7. 1- Pomegranate

8. 1 - Jack fruit (Chandra Halasu)

9. 2 - Seebe - Guava(1 Allahabad and 1 KG Guava)

10. 1 - Nerale

11. 4 - Kakada (flower)

Next week need to search for Banana Sapplings and also fix the drip system...

Some Photos.

Story So far.....

Registered on April 15th 2010. It took us 9 months to get the fencing done!!! Finally we got the fencing done on November 27th 2010 after 4 surveys and numerous discussions with neighbors!! It's been a great laerning so far to get to know the process. I feel it's the price we are paying for leaving our ancestor's occupation and running towards city for better(?) life style. But it's worth learning and getting back to the roots...

Right now we have some land which is fenced and ready to be cultivated...so there'll be more updates coming on the way...

13/06/2011

We planted 1000 G9 banana and the experiment begins :-) We are still with the conventional technique of using NPK as and when needed and lot of ploughing is going on to keep it clean.

14/06/2011

We are trying our luck with Corn in the remaining area. Around 2 acres. No fertilizer and ploughing done due to vairous issues :-)

26/06/2011

Cnstruction of two small rooms are completed today and we are planning the pooja in a small way.

22/10/2011

We got our first crop out of the land. We got aroun 700 KG of Corn from 2 acres. Lots of learning and no loss no gain proosition. :-) we enjoyed our baby corn manchurian made out of our own organic corn.

07/11/2011

We missed the fertilizer cycle by a big way no nourishment to plants till 120 days !! due to labour problem :-(.

Finally we found a person who is looking into the day to day affairs. We gave the first dose of fertilizer on 02/10/2011 and second on 06/11/2011.

So far the plants are coming up fine and have had few issues with Sigatoka and we religiously applied Bavistine :-)

Today we are going with our plan which was long due to get the teak sapplings planted. Digging is going on for our second set of banana(we are planning for Elakki Banana this time) and also thelong term trees long the boundary. Hopefully we will get this done this week and the farm would get some look with 1200 more plants.